Catastrophic Confusion
by Kitty's Muse
Summary: "Things seemed to be going great. Well, until Alfred started acting strange." Slight AU. They thought they were normal people, until their behaviors changed and they started having weird dreams. Are they really countries, or is it a mass hallucination?
1. Chapter 1

**Hello! I've been working on this for a while and so am hyped about finally finishing typing this chapter! It was first inspired by Folie à Plusiers and so this owes some credit to that. However, it is certainly not going to involve anyone going to a mental hospital, so it's not just a repeat of that storyline. Anyway, let me stop talking and let you read. Enjoy!**

Chapter 1

Matthew POV

Things between Matthew and Alfred Jones had been pretty good. The old was a relatively laid back guy who watched out for his younger brother and kept his cool when he got into a pickle, which mostly happened when he felt the need to show off. They were close, even going to the same college together in New York City. Then again, their mother had always seemed a little too distant for either one to get close to so they were basically stuck with each other. Either way, the two were living pretty normally and things seemed to be going great.

Well, until Alfred started acting strange.

It started one night when they were watching hockey. Well, it was mainly Matthew watching as his brother only partly cared for the sport. He had expressed his preference for watching football over hockey several times. Matt didn't really understand his _own_ liking of the winter sport but honestly didn't care- after all, football mainly consisted of men tackling each other.

Anyways, Matthew was watching a hockey match while Al had been doing… something else. Matt honestly didn't know what his older brother was doing- he kept moving from room to room, seemingly looking for something. Matthew figured that if he wanted help he'd ask for it so he ignored the other blond and turned his attention back to the match.

After twenty minutes of this Al appeared to be panicked. He checked his phone, opened the door and peered outside (what he'd be looking for out there Matt didn't know), and started to shift things around on the kitchen counters, lifting the items up and looking beneath them. Finally, he turned to _shouting_. "Mattie! Are you here? Mattie-"

_What the hell?_ "I'm right here," he replied quietly. The younger frowned slightly. He must have a cold or something, because he couldn't manage to get any louder. That was odd.

"Huh?" was all the other college student seemed to be able to come up with as a response.

The other sighed. Had his brother taken a stupid pill today or something? "I'm right here," he repeated. "On the couch. You know, your brother Matthew? Watching a hockey match?"

Realization spread across Alfred's face along with a big smile of relief and exultation. "There you are Mattie! Where have you been?"

He rolled his eyes. Sure, his brother had his dumb moments, but this was a new low. "I've been here watching hockey for the entire time, Al." That was weird. He didn't feel sick or ill and his voice didn't sound rough or scratchy and yet he was still talking really quietly. If this kept up he might have to see his doctor, which he certainly didn't want to do.

"Really?" Albert frowned. "I-I- that was really weird." He sat down by his brother, putting his hand against his forehead. "Feels like I've been on some sort of sugar high. I was having the most insane thoughts too, about being 'the hero' and eating hamburgers." He shuddered. "I still have an urge to go to McDonald's."

Matthew cringed. Thank God they could cook in their small shared apartment. Food was way too expensive otherwise, plus fast food tasted horrible. "Well, I'm hungry and it's almost time for dinner so I'll make something. Maybe that will help." He noted that his voice was back to normal and blamed it on an occasional break in his voice. Good; he had certainly not wanted to visit the doctor, and colds sucked.

After that the night continued on normally. They ate spaghetti- a cheap meal that's easy to make- and played Call of Duty for a couple of hours before heading off to their respective rooms. Matthew closed his door, grateful for some time to think about his plans tomorrow. His first class started at nine so he'd have to leave by 8:15 to get there on time. He was free until one, when he would be joining his other class for the day. Afterwards he would just have to get back home. Not a bad day at all. He glanced up at his alarm clock, noting that it was now eleven o'clock. He'd be fine as long as he got to bed by twelve and got up by eight. Thank goodness he was a morning person and didn't have problems getting up like his brother, though the elder tried his best.

At about 11:20 he stopped thinking about the few plans he had and stripped down to his shorts and boxers. He climbed under the covers, setting his alarm before turning towards the wall. He realized he had left his glasses on again and so placed them by his clock before turning once again on his side and closing his eyes in anticipation of the calming sleep that would come soon thereafter.

His dreams were anything but peaceful.

They had started innocently enough. He had been sitting in some sort of living room, waiting for someone or something to return. It had taken him a couple of moments to realize that he had some sort of annoying curl right in front of his face. However, his subconscious didn't seem bothered at all by it so he was forced to stop focusing his attention on the offensive hair.

He found himself staring at a white dog, a weird looking one at that. Wait a minute- that was no dog. It wasn't even canine from what he could discern from its posture and facial build.

Dream him sighed. "Alfred forgot again, didn't he?" He seemed to be talking to the dog- uh, whatever it was. Certainly a little weird, but not too unusual. He knew from personal experience that some people liked talking to their pets. Only problem was that he seemed to be expecting an answer.

The animal opened its mouth, probably yawn or do some other similar action. Rationally that should've been the case. Instead, it asked in a dull tone, "Who?"

Matthew was vaguely aware that he was thinking something along the lines of _what the hell?_ but dream him only sighed for a second time. This seemed, for some reason, to be a routine occurrence. "I'm Cana-"

"-da!" The room had blurred and solidified into some sort of meeting area, with a large, elongated table in the middle. Quite a few people, mostly men in nicer dress of some sort, were standing up, putting papers back into bags and chatting with- and in some cases bothering- others as they left the room. A very excited, familiar looking blond approached the dreamer. He was wearing a dark brown bomber jacket and was holding- was that a _hamburger?_ He grinned widely at Matthew, very clearly recognizing him. "There you are Mattie! Where have you been?"

Matthew was getting a sense of déjà vu. However, this didn't seem to matter too much. "I've been here the whole time," he said, nearly whispering.

"Really?" Matthew noticed that the other blond had a hair sticking straight up and that his hair looked generally unkempt. He would have mistaken him for Alfred, but there was something different than that…

"Yes, really."

"Wow." The other laughed slightly. "I really didn't see you there, Mat-"

"-thew Williams." He was now standing, gun in hand, on a mostly desolate battlefield. He noticed that he was now in a cool brown uniform of some sort with the collar closed around his throat. His stray hair was still present in front of his face. His gun was pointed at an albino man, who was in a dark blue uniform with some sort of silver cross noticeable on his dirtied tie. He stared at him with red eyes. "Kesesese." Matthew realized that he was laughing. "You actually beat the awesome me, but what now? You Allies still have _mein bruder_ to defeat, and you'll never be able to do that." The man kept laughing, its slightly childish sound couple with his words chilling the Canadi-

_Beep. Beep. Beep. Bee-_

He woke up with a start at the sound of his alarm. He slammed the snooze button and checked the time. It was only 7:40 but he still pulled himself out of bed, turning off his alarm as he did so. He sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing his forehead. The details of his dreams were now blurred but he could still remember the faces and the names used.

Canada. He had called himself that, but it seemed to be suggested by others. And the Al look alike had called him Mattie. That, however, was normal in their family. But why had the albino German called him Williams?

He shook his head clear. It was dreams, for Pete's sake. They weren't supposed to make sense. Why was he trying to reflect so heavily on them? He laughed at himself, though it was a little forced. He was being silly. He should've gone to bed earlier instead of trying to beat Alfred at CoD.

Satisfied with his thoughts, the undergrad walked to his dresser and dressed quickly in jeans, some red t-shirt and a grey sweatshirt. He realized by that time that he had forgotten to put on his glasses as everything past three feet or so started to blur into masses of colors. He found his square frame glasses once again by his alarm clock (how did he miss them the first time?) and he headed to the kitchen after grabbing his school bag and wallet.

When he came into the room he realized that Alfred hadn't gotten up yet. _Strange, I thought he also had a class at nine._ He glanced out the window, checking for any snow, before concluding that he was either trying to sleep for another five minutes or had class late today. It did happen sometimes, just not often. He pulled out the cereal and milk, pouring them into a bowl on the counter. He sat down to his simple breakfast.

Matthew checked the clock as he was eating. It was 8:05 and his older brother was not out yet. Matt was contemplating pouring a glass of water on him to wake him up when the other blond skidded into the kitchen, hair still messy and pajamas still on but with a smile on his face. Now _that_ was unusual at this time in the morning.

"The hero has arrived!" Alfred flashed his younger brother a thumbs up before pouring himself a bowl and flopping down in the seat across from his brother. Matthew sighed, rolled his eyes and ate his cereal. No doubt that this was due to sleep deprivation caused by hours of playing CoD. He must have went back out and started playing again after Matt had fallen asleep.

"How late this time?"

"What do you mean, how late?" The older looked clueless. Yep, definitely sleep deprivation and CoD.

"How late did you stay up playing CoD last night?"

The older once again looked confused. "I went to bed at the same time as you Mattie. When do you _think_ I played Call of Duty?"

"Well, I _know_ it was later than me, else you wouldn't be so energetic, eh?"

"The hero doesn't lie! What do you think I was do-" The older paused, staring at Matthew's head and seemingly snapping out of it. "Wha's- What's up with your hair Mattie?"

"Eh? What do you mean, my hair is-" He stopped, realizing several things that had before now evaded his notice. One was that his voice had dropped in volume again, which made it surprising that Alfred had even heard him the first time. The second thing was the fact that he had said "eh?" twice in two sentences unintentionally when he's never done so before. The third thing was the curly hair he had hanging in front of his face.

He panicked a bit after his attempt to smooth it back in place failed.

_Merde._


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Hello, y'all! Sorry for the really late chapter. Life's been in the way, and the third chapter was posing some problems for me to write as I had originally planned it. I am now looking for a beta, so if any of you would like to do so let me know in a review or message! (And as a note: Feliciano at one point refers to Germany/Ludwig as 'Doitsu'. No, he does not know Japanese. This was just a way for me to not use the name 'Germany' while still showing that Feliciano clearly remembers at least a decent amount about Ludwig. I'll also cheat and say that he picked it up from Japan. ;])**

**I will only post this disclaimer once: I do not own any of the characters in the series Axis Powers Hetalia. The series belongs to Himaruya. (I am a fanfiction writer, after all.)**

* * *

Chapter 2

Lovino POV

"I'm going to make some pasta, ve~." The Italian smiled, eyes nearly shut. He wandered off to the kitchen, his brother watching him silently from his chair in the living room. The older twirled his hair in thought, noting that it was messier and curlier than normal, not to mention the hair near the top of his head that kept curling upwards. Must've been the weather.

What was more concerning than the climate and its effect on his hair was his brother's behavior. He would have normally put it off as an excessive amount of caffeine in his system after one too many cups of coffee but he had been off for five days and didn't seem jittery. Not only that but the younger of the two had gone from being friendly, calm, and confident to being _overly_ friendly, easily excited and a coward. Even the even-headed Lovino was having a difficult time not finding himself annoyed at the change. Not to mention that his brother was wandering around with his eyes shut. Now _that_ was just stupid.

He found himself yanking on a clump of his hair and slowly pulled his hand back into his lap. Alright, so Feliciano's continued strange behavior was concerning him more than he would like to admit. Question was, what had caused the change in the first place? He silently hoped that his brother _had_ been sneaking coffee into his diet again and that he'd soon return to normal.

Lovino should've known better. The next day and the day after that his brother was still acting the same. The elder had been watching him carefully to make sure he wasn't having any caffeine—which he certainly wasn't—and he wasn't really eating anything sugary either. In fact, he had been mostly eating pasta and other traditional Italian food to the point that his typical candy consumption had completely stopped. It was outright atypical for Feliciano.

Thursday morning found the older Vargas brother ranting to himself again. It had now been nine days—over a week!—since his brother had started acting weirdly. Some of their friends and coworkers had asked about the change, but he still wasn't sure what its cause was. "It's the potato bastard's fault! If he had left my brother alone he'd be fine now. Damn it!"

He stopped his pacing around in his bedroom for a moment. Who the hell _was_ this 'potato bastard'? A blonde German man came to mind but frankly Lovino didn't remember ever having met such a person. It didn't matter anyway. Something was seriously wrong with his little brother and he needed to figure out how to fix it, silly dreams or imagination be damned! However, this was easier said than done.

"Are you okay fratello?" Feliciano cocked his head to the side and his smile weakened as he stood, waiting for a response from his brother.

Lovino sighed, fighting down the irrational anger he'd been feeling more and more as the days passed. He was much easily angered in the strange dreams he'd been having—he also cussed a lot more—but he would not allow that to happen. Even if Feliciano had been annoying him more and more he needed to stay steady for his brother. That would surely help fix him. "I'm fine, Feli," he finally replied. "Are you alright? You've seemed sad recently."

The younger immediately smiled widely, though it seemed to be fake. "Ve~, I'm great!"

Lovino promptly facepalmed, annoyed at the now typical response. _Don't get mad at him, don't get mad…_ After a few moments he managed to calm down enough so as to only glare at his brother. "You're a horrible liar. What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong!" His brother's voice rose a pitch as he pleaded with the older brunette. "Everything's perfectly fine, vee~."

Now getting slightly frustrated at Feliciano's attempts to wave off his concern—which wasn't working, by the way—he decided to go for the thing which kept appearing in his dreams whenever his brother was present in them. "It it about that potato bastard?"

His brother's breath caught for a moment as he stared at Lovino with wide eyes. "N-no, i-it's not about Lud-lud-" At that point he broke down, lunging at his brother, hugging him and crying into his shoulder.

Having been caught off guard and now officially panicking, Lovino stopped thinking about reason and resorted with instinct. However, this just meant that his panic rose even more. "Ah-ah-ah- st-stop hugging me!" He tried to push his brother away from him but found that his grip had grown vice-like and wouldn't loosen. He _knew_ he shouldn't have mentioned that German to his brother. "And stop being so upset about that damn potato bastard!"

"But-but-I miss Doitsu!" Feliciano managed to choke out, though his sobs kept breaking up what he was saying. "I-I haven't seen him in so long! I mi-miss him!"

An exclamation of _oh god_ passed through Lovino's mind. _This is pissing me off!_ "Damn it Spain, where are you when I actually need some help?" He muttered to himself, the image of a green eyed, tanned man coming to his mind. "Stupid tomato bastard!"

The younger of the two looked up at his brother, looking very confused. "Lovi, who's Spain?"


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Yao POV

"What are you doing, aru?" Yao had entered the living room of their family's house to find that his younger (adoptive) brother was reading… something. Unfortunately it appeared to be written in Japanese, which he did not understand at all. He didn't like not knowing what was going on around him, especially since he felt responsible as the older child of what happened at home.

Kiku glanced up for a moment at Yao, who was trying to look over his shoulder at the thing he was reading and calmly moved it in front of his own face. "I didn't understand what you said, Yao. You might want to repeat that." He sounded calmer than usual to Yao, but the older ignored it in favor of feeling frustrated with his brother for not having listened to him in the first place.

"What. Are. You. _Doing._"

Kiku looked back to his brother, pressing the open pages against his chest. "I'm reading manga." His facial expression didn't change from that of disinterest as he buried himself once again into the face of the book.

Yao sighed and took a seat next to his brother, feeling annoyed. This silent and stoic tactic Kiku was using was working better than the openly provocative tactic he typically employed. In fact, as the clock ticked quietly by, it was becoming quite disturbing to Yao.

After two or so minutes a puzzling thought came to Yao. "How can you understand all that, aru? I thought you didn't know that much Japanese."

"I can't understand you," Kiku hadn't even moved this time, keeping the book close to his face and causing his voice to be slightly muffled. "Please speak English and not Chinese. You seem to have some sort of verbal tic also. An 'aru' or something similar."

Yao sighed angrily. "I've been speaking English the entire time, Kiku! I don't even know Chinese, aru! And what do you mean 'a verbal tic', aru? I've _never_ had a verbal tic, ar—" What he had been hearing and saying finally caught up with his train of thought. He stopped as he finally started to realize what was going on, and he deliberately slowed down his speech in order to confirm that he was speaking comprehensibly. "How much of that did you understand?"

The younger turned to face his adoptive sibling. "Clearly? Only my name and what has definitely become a verbal tic." He paused. "You seem to have become… easily frustrated. Even when I used to openly try to do things to annoy you it took a much greater effort to cause you to show your anger." He looked Yao straight in the eyes, expression unnaturally still for the young man. "Something's happened to you."

Yao was about to get angry at his brother once again when he realized that he was right. It wasn't Kiku whose behavior and responses were abnormal—it were _his_. He must've been so out of it that he viewed the other as being off when in reality it was the opposite. "I-I'll be in my room, a—" He stopped himself again and took the opportunity before Kiku could continue to run off towards his room.

* * *

A week had passed and Yao was certain that it wasn't just him who seemed to be having mental issues. He had, at least, been able to tell when his speech started to progress into Mandarin, namely due to him rapidly remembering—somehow—how to speak the language itself. He considered this lucky as he could now understand some of his brother's (despite the other's recent protests against the title) mumblings and mutterings in Japanese due to similarities between the two languages.

About two days ago Kiku had locked himself in his room and four days before that had started insisting (in both public and private) that Yao was not his sibling. He had totally lost all signs of his previously more passionate personality at that time, and though he could speak Chinese didn't like doing so and wouldn't talk in English either (he claimed he didn't know what it was or how to speak it). The younger finally just shut himself in his room, covered himself with blankets, and only let Yao in if he had food with him (and it had to be Japanese foods too). He refused to speak at all with Yao beyond basic requests, and the only things he did say were in Japanese.

Yao was cleaning up their last meal, consisting mostly of rice, when he heard the squeaking of a door opening. He turned around and smiled. "Japan, aru! You've come out!" His smile fell slightly as he looked at the black uniform the other was wearing. Why did it look so familiar? "Where did you get that, aru? I thought you didn't leave your room."

"I didn't. It was already in there." His expression never changed, so despite his suspicions Yao couldn't tell if his brother was lying or not. His smile returned, however, considering that Kiku was once again speaking in English. And so Yao turned back to the sink and resumed washing the dishes. He thought he heard a sliding sound from behind him but concluded that it was his mind imagining things. After all, he had been having some very strange dreams about him being someone named "China" and other individuals with similar names. He hoped that his brother would return back to normal so perhaps the more disturbing nightmares he had been having would go—

A searing pain shot through his back and he fell forwards against the counter, trying to grip onto the edge of the sink. He felt faint and found that his strength seemed to have disappeared. He fell onto his side and then rolled over on his back. All he could see was red—the pool surrounding him, the blade held above him, the featureless face and eyes of his brother…

* * *

**A/N: Short chapter, I know. (And a cliffhanger, mwahahaha...) But for some reason it's hard for me to write the Asians, especially Japan. (It's also hard to write him so... boring also. I tried to provide a sort of foreshadowing of the ending of this chapter with the repetition and most likely failed. XD) I also had trouble thinking of how to fit that scene in there; it's a bit important in later chapters but the way I was first thinking of things I couldn't come up with a reason for having Kiku go all dark!Japan on China. However, I did come up with a reasoning... which you all will have to just figure out on your own for now. (Cue evil smirk.)**

**The next chapter is in the works! I'm really excited about it, especially since so far the starting personalities of at least one of them is so greatly contrasting to their character that the reactions from themselves and the others in the group should be great fun to write. (That is, if I don't get stuck at all on it...) My hint(s) to you are that three out of the four speak the same language and that a DIFFERENT (but in the same group) trio is a very famous trio in the fandom. Also, none of them have appeared in this story yet beyond maybe one or two mentions of two of them. Also, I will not be providing this focus for every nation group or sibling sets. Not only would it cause the plot to lag with an excess of characters but it would be difficult for me to write them all well and in character, especially for some of the more obscure ones. However, I will try to make mentions of characters that don't appear at all, and it's likely that most of them will show up at some point or another in the story (as this thing has way too long of a plot and so should be pretty long by the time it eventually gets finished). **

**Until next time then (and I really hope I'm not confusing you all _too_ much)!**

**P.S.- There's no particular reason this note is at the bottom instead of the top; I decided recently to move them down here in case they started dragging on and on and/or if people don't want to really read them and dislike having to skip them on top. ;]**


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